My dissertation centers on Leonardo da Vinci’s compositional methods in his drawings and writings, and investigates their relationship with scientific diagrams and mechanical principles. Taking my cue from recent scholarship in art history and visual culture—such as W.J.T. Mitchell, Leonard Barkan, and Marco Ruffini—I identify the main sources for Leonardo’s development of visual and written narratives in the books belonging to his personal library. Subsequently, I analyze recurrent patterns in Leonardo’s folios featuring fables, emblems, and engineering projects, and examine the convergence of his use of empirical, diagrammatic, and pictorial strategies toward the investigation of nature. I argue that in order to represent tensions between nature and artifice, Leonardo applies notions of mechanics to his fables, and structures them on a binary scheme that displays simultaneously the causes and the effects of a situation. Then he develops his fables into emblems, which are synthetic texts condensing written and pictorial material, modeled on the same binary structure. By deeply engaging with both visual and textual elements in Leonardo’s manuscripts, my study reveals the intimate links between scientific knowledge and humanistic thought across his oeuvre.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Italian
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_8785
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (xx, 360 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Fables
Subject
Name (authority = LCNAF)
NamePart (type = personal)
Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Giuditta Cirnigliaro
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore10001600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.